Hebrews 4:12-14: Hold Fast Your Profession!

Once again, if you will turn with me to continue our studies in this tremendous epistle,

Hebrews chapter 4. Epistle to the

Hebrews, chapter 4. Before we look to God's Word, let us ask

Him to bless our time. Indeed, our Heavenly Father, as we turn our minds and our hearts towards Your truths, we ask that You would protect us from distraction, that You would help us to hear

Your Word, to make applications that we might be obedient servants of Yours to the honor and glory of our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For it is in His name that we pray. Amen. If you were with us last time, that we were studying the book of Hebrews anyways, you know that we had just worked through a fairly difficult portion where the writer is very strongly warning against those who might not enter into God's rest.

You remember these strong words really going through chapters 3 and 4.

And the warning coming out of the 95th Psalm, there is a rest that many of the people who were delivered from Israel, from Egypt I'm sorry, did not enter into.

Though they had seen mighty and miraculous works of God. Though they had seen

Pharaoh's army destroyed. Though they had seen the plagues that they had been delivered in so many miraculous ways.

Yet, because that sight of the miraculous was not joined with faith in their hearts, they did not enter into the promised land.

They did not have faith. And so you have those words in verse 7, today if you hear

His voice, do not harden your hearts. And we finish with verse 11, therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest so that no one will fall through following the same example of disobedience.

And so once again we have a reminder of the fact that we are looking at a book that is intended to be delivered to people who are under pressure.

They are under pressure to go back to the old ways. They are under pressure to renounce this belief in Christ, to go back to the temple, to offer sacrifice, to once again follow in the ways of Moses as understood by the

Jewish people of that day. And though it was a logical stopping point to end at the end of verse 11, it's also a little bit of a tough place to stop.

Because you have this, these strong words. There are going to be people who are in the congregation, yet they're not going to enter into God's rest.

It is a recognition of the fact that the congregation is a, is a mixed company. Though we desire to see everyone who makes profession of faith to have true and saving faith, the fact of the matter is the

Bible tells us that there are people who go out from us. So it might be demonstrated they were not truly of us.

And so while it was logical to stop there, the problem is we stopped right before all the encouragement.

When we read through the book of Hebrews and we encounter these difficult probing sections, they will immediately be followed by words of encouragement.

And so today we get to pick up with verse 12. And while we only have a few verses left in this chapter,

I confess that it would be very easy were I to give in to the temptation to camp on any one of these verses for a very long period of time.

But I shall do my best to resist that temptation, though I make no particular promises.

Hebrews chapter 4 beginning at verse 12, for the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow, and is able to judge, or is a discerner, a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And there is no creature, no created thing, hidden from his sight, but all things are open, naked, laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do, or to whom we must give an answer.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,

Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things or in all manners as we are, yet without sin.

Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the gracious throne, the throne of grace, so we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

So you can see how very encouraging this section of the book of Hebrews is.

But once again, we need to see it in context. There are a couple of verses there that we have frequently heard in our presence before, but very often they are separated from their context.

We've all heard that the Word of God is living and active and sharp with any two -edged sword. But how often did we hear that text in its context?

Don't forget what has come before. Why is the author saying the Word of God is living and active and sharp with any two -edged sword?

Well, if we go back and look at what has come before, we remember what was going on.

There is this application of the 95th Psalm, and there is this warning in verse 6,

Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them, failed to enter it, because of disobedience, he again fixes a certain day.

Today, saying through David, after so long a time, just as has been said before, today if you hear his voice, do not harm your hearts.

There was a promise in Scripture. There was a promise of arrest, but also a warning in Scripture.

And the people of God, some, they listened, some they hearkened, some did not, and that Word of God, that Word that came from God, discerned, it divided, it showed something about the people as to how they responded to that Word.

And so it is in the context of the fact that there is, the author has just finished, in our

English Bibles, two chapters, for him just a number of sentences really, but he has just finished from chapter 3, verse 12, all the way through verse 11 of chapter 4, this exhortation based upon an interpretation of this text from the

Psalms. And so it is in that context, that application that he then says, the

Word of God, that Word of God he has just gotten done making application of, that Word of God he has just gotten done preaching, is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword.

Now, I just have to stop for a moment, first giving in to temptation, to note how different the writer to the

Hebrew's view of Scripture is than what is found in so much of what populates the shelves of your local

Christian bookstore. For today, sadly, in so many contexts, the

Bible is viewed as merely an artifact of history, an ancient text that in essence needs to be updated to meet our modern needs.

And yet it is so very clear that the writer to the Hebrews sees the

Word of God as living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword. And he's not talking about John chapter 6.

He's not talking about Ephesians 1 or Romans 8 and 9. He's talking about the 95th

Psalm. Yeah, that part back before Matthew that a lot of folks today struggle to see as being overly relevant.

It's just a bunch of Bronze Age sophistry is how many people would look at it today.

But for the writer to the Hebrews, long after those words were originally written, the Word of God is living and active and sharper.

Remember, we pointed out when we went through that, that David is the one who's writing these things, that there is a time gap between when he said today, and the author points that out, that today keeps going, and it was relevant to the children of Israel in the wilderness, and it was relevant to David's day, and even after Joshua's day.

The point is, he sees the Word of God as being alive and active in every generation.

Every generation has to be accountable to the Word of God. Is that not exactly how

Jesus is viewed? In Matthew chapter 22, when the Sadducees came to Him, and they tried to trick

Him up with that question, His response included saying, Have you not read what was spoken to you?

Then He quotes from Genesis. But it was spoken to you. He held men accountable for what had been spoken long ago, as if God had spoken it directly to them.

So that means to us, brothers and sisters today, is we can never hide behind the excuse that, well, that was then, this is now.

I'm not saying that we do not recognize, for example, that Jesus, in the book of Mark, made all meats clean, and I'm not saying we don't see fulfillment and all that kind of thing.

I'm not saying that. What I am saying is, that this attitude that, in essence, elevates modern man.

We are so technologically advanced. We know so much more than the ancients did.

We look at this, and well, the ancients wrote this, so, you know, they just couldn't have understood what our life is like today.

No. There have been advancements between the days of David and the reign of the Hebrews.

He doesn't take that view. He sees that what was written by the psalmist, even as David was the instrument, is the very

Word of God. And the Word of God is not dependent upon the technological level of the people who originally wrote it for it to be relevant to us today.

The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword.

The two -edged sword being one of the most fearsome weapons you could have. You could cut with it going both directions.

You didn't have to flip over. It was dangerous any way that it went. And it would divide, it would cut, it would cleave in a way that we might only see in well -made movies that have really good special effects because it's really a horrible thing to see the kind of warfare that it would have been involved with.

But it pierces as far as the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Obviously, he's using this in a metaphorical way. He's not talking about a physical sword or physical joints and marrow.

The point is that things that are normally joined together intimately, it is able to divide asunder.

It is able to cut apart things that we would not even be able to tell what the difference was, spiritually and physically.

So that it is, in one translation, able to judge.

The term that is used there in the original language at the end of verse 12, you would recognize it.

It's kritikos. We know what a critic is. We know to criticize something.

But we should be very careful just because we see the connection in the words doesn't mean the meanings have not changed over time.

And when you look at the use of this term before the writing of the book of Hebrews, and especially since it seems that the writer of the

Hebrews is very familiar with the writings of a man by the name of Philo, the

Jew. And he uses a lot of his terminology, which would make sense because of the people he's trying to reach.

He wants to utilize language that would be familiar to them. When we look at that train of use, it always involved a sifting.

A sifting, a discernment, an examination. When you are asked to examine something carefully, you look at all the possibilities.

You want to have all the information that you can have so you can make the proper decision.

And the writer tells us that the Word of God is able to judge, to sift through, to discern, and to properly understand the very thoughts and intentions of the heart.

That's a wonderful thing because I don't know about you, but most of us human beings can't make heads or tails of the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

So often they are a jumble of emotions and desires and sinful ideas and good and holy ideas and it's all mixed up within us.

And thankfully, the judge, who will judge us, he is able, his Word is able, to accurately judge and to discern the very thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And yet, still speaking of just those words from Psalm 95, what the author is saying is, look, you can see here how the

Word of God had this effect amongst the people of God. Those preached words, today if you hear

His voice not harden your hearts as you did so long ago, that Word, that message, for some, they hear and they don't harden their hearts.

There is a work of grace for others, but there is no work of grace.

Just as the rebellious child, when you say, no, don't do that, you see the stiffening of the back and the intention to go ahead and break the rules, even right in front of mommy and daddy, that happens in the heart of the sinful man as well when he hears the

Word. He says, do not harden your hearts. Who are you to tell me? Who are you to tell me what to do with my heart?

My heart is my domain. There is a stiffening. There is a division.

And you see those who are sensitive, those who are not, those in whom God's Spirit is working, and those who are not.

So the Word of God was, in Psalm 95, living and active and sharp in the age to end sword.

It remains that way today. One of the reasons that so many are afraid to preach the whole counsel of God is that when you do so, it must, of necessity, bring reflection, sometimes painful reflection, to the heart and mind of any person who hears seriously what the

Word of God is saying. That's exactly what the next verse tells us. There is no creature.

There is no created thing, the verse tells us. Nothing under creation that is hidden from His sight.

Nothing has found a way to pull the covers over them, to find something that is impenetrable to the very sight of God.

There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked, open, laid bare to the eyes of Him, with whom we have to do, or to whom we must give, and it's the very term that we normally use, the word logos, word, to whom we must give a report, with whom we must have doings.

It's a very wide word in its application, in its essence. So what is being said here?

Well, it's fairly straightforward. The Word of God searches us out. The Word of God demonstrates where our heart really is.

And while we may fool everybody else, while there may have been many people who, the day before the spies came back and told about the

Promised Land, they said, no we can't do it, we can't do it. The day before, they sounded like they were all for the true worship of God.

They were going to trust in Him, they were going to follow Him wherever, and then the spies come and all the disbelief that comes out.

But the day before, if you had just looked, if you had said, well, who here is a true believer?

We wouldn't have been able to tell. We wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between the true believers and those who are going to shrink back into destruction.

That's the same situation that the writer is facing in the Christian congregation to whom he's writing this.

It'd be nice to be able to look out and tell who's really hearing, who's really listening. You can't tell by body language.

There are some folks who've learned over the years to look very intent, and they look like they're really focused in.

But right now, their minds are a million miles away. I can start speaking swakily, they wouldn't even notice me, until other people start interjecting.

Then they tune back in for a while. But then there are others that look like they are on a planet

Xenon, but they are hanging on every word, and I mispronounce one word.

Pastor Fry will tell you how this works. I mispronounce just one word, and they're going to be on me afterwards. But I can't tell.

There's no way of me knowing. The Word of God. The Word of God discerns these things.

God knows. There is no creature hidden from His sight. And we cannot help but think of little children.

We see the conscience as it develops within them. And as they do things, and they recognize right and wrong, how they start trying to find ways why.

See if you can do something bad, but no one can see. And yet, in every culture, no matter how degraded it becomes, for mankind, there is always this sense that no matter where I hide,

I still have shame. Oh, I know that's not a real popular word in our culture anymore. We're not supposed to have shame.

Psychologists help us get rid of that. But the reality is, you watch some of those television programs where closed circuit

TV catches people, and all of a sudden they become aware of that, what you see. It doesn't matter what the psychologists say.

There's embarrassment. There's shame. You've been caught. There's always this sense, even when you think,

I'm free of all of that, there's always this sense that there is one who sees.

I think that's behind what you see in some of those who attempt very fully to completely throw off all restraint.

People like Nietzsche, who proclaimed the very death of God, who gave full vent to his visceral hatred of God.

If you really listen closely, what could he not escape but the very presence of that God that he hated so deeply.

As you listen today to a modern atheist, a man by the name of Christopher Hitchens.

God help when you listen to Hitchens speak. He pretty much only gives one presentation over and over again.

He gets paid for it repeatedly. It's an amazing thing. He's got quite the gig going on. But what you hear him say over and over again is,

I don't want to live in a celestial North Korea, where there is a

God who is constantly examining my every thought and faulting me for everything.

Christopher Hitchens hates a God who would know his heart and mind. Why? Because he knows what's in his heart.

And he knows if God is God, and God is holy, and sin must be punished.

That's why he hates God. So there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are openly bear -guised, and with whom we have to do.

And for the unbeliever who is not clothed in the righteousness of Christ, the unbeliever who is in a false religious system, where he has to be going on the treadmill of works and indulgences and things like that, trying to earn forgiveness from God, that kind of text is no encouragement.

But this is supposed to be an encouraging text. And it is an encouraging text within the

Christian faith. Because the believer whose heart has been changed wants to have intimate communion with his creator.

Wants to have that searching light of God's truth, probing his or her heart, and saying, there is an area of darkness, there is an area of ignorance,

Lord, what must I do? The believer wants that, because the believer can claim the promise, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

And the believer can look at the next verse and say, ah, we have a great high priest, Jesus, the

Son of God. He is one who stands before that holy

God. I have submitted to Him. Therefore, to hear that God sees me at every moment is a wonderful promise.

There is nothing that happens to me. There is no act of persecution. There is no act of rejection of me because of my faith that God does not see.

How often have the saints cried out, Lord, do you see what they're doing? The answer always is, yeah,

I do. If we recognize that He has a purpose, and that in His time and in His way, justice will be done, then this is a great promise

God sees. I am not hidden from His sight.

In all things, including the hurts we receive, including the times when we're falsely accused of things that we've done nothing, but others say, oh, you've done something.

God knows. God knows the intentions of our hearts. God knows our thoughts.

He knows the thoughts and intentions of those who are falsely accused. In many countries in the world today where sharia, or portions of sharia law,

Islamic law, have been established, it has become commonplace for Muslims to accuse

Christians in violations of sharia. I heard him blaspheme the prophet. I saw him tear a page out of the

Quran. Maddened men rush to beat and to kill and to burn and to imprison.

We look at that and we say, where is the justice? Well, God knows the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and justice will be done.

Maybe not in this life, but in that time to come, justice will be done, and it will be handed out by one who is fully equipped to give that justice in its proper way.

So with those words, then, we have more encouragement. Therefore, because of this, since we have a great high priest, and that sort of goes back to chapter 2, where that had been,

Jesus had been introduced to us in verse 17, therefore he had to be made like his brother in all things, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

There's sort of been an excursus, a discussion of something, and now returning to that, therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,

Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. There's the encouragement.

If that congregation that first heard these words, at this point there's much introspection.

Am I one of those who has hardened my heart? Am I one of those who's going to enter into peace, enter into the promised land?

Well, therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens.

There always comes a time. In all the years that I've met with people, and we've talked about this before, you have on the one side the great crowd of people who tend to be just apathetic about spiritual things, but then sometimes on this side, you have the people who just can't stop navel -gazing.

They just can't stop looking inward, they can't have happiness, they can't have joy. They're just always, oh,

I wonder, I wonder. And in every situation, in speaking with someone like that, eventually

I think every counselor has had to say, can you not look to Christ? Can you not look outside of yourself?

And that's what you have here. To that congregation, they're not told, well, just keep looking inside, you know, just keep looking inside.

Who are you to look to? You look to Christ. And if you find in Him your great high priest, if you recognize,

I need a great high priest. I need one who can bear my sins.

I need one who can intercede before the Father. Then you are one in whom the work of grace has begun, because certainly one of the most obvious things to me is that the vast majority of those who've gone out from us, somewhere in them was a root of self -righteousness.

Trusting in self, trusting in what I've accomplished, trusting in what I've given, what

I've done. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens.

Now, some people build, you know, entire cosmologies and multiple heavens and things like that, but the fact of the matter is in the

Old Testament, Shemayim, heavens, is plural. And so it's probably just taking the standard language, it's, you know,

I suppose you could talk about, well, the ascension, you've got the natural heavens and then the supernatural heavens. I don't know that that's necessarily the case.

The point is that he has entered into, this is going to become specifically stated in chapter 9, he has entered into the holy place.

He's not just an earthly high priest. We have an echo here that's going to build and build and become very explicit in later chapters.

He, because he lives forever, is able to save the uttermost.

That's coming up in chapter 7. He has passed through the heavens. We have a great high priest.

And who is he? It doesn't say Jesus, the son of Mary. It says

Jesus, the son of God. Why did I say that? Well, because that's the terminology that's almost always used in Jesus in the

Quran. He's called Isa bin Maryam. We don't know where Isa came from.

It's not even the right word, actually. But that's the Quranic term for Jesus, Isa. And he's called

Isa bin Maryam all the time, always, son of Mary, son of Mary, son of Mary. Because, of course, Muslims deny that Jesus is the son of God.

And we gather here this morning, and we do so one malfunctioning detonator away from sitting here only a day or two after what would have been the next greatest attack on American soil since 9 -11.

If you aren't aware of the fact, maybe you've been in a lead mine or a golf course or something like that on, was it

Christmas Day or Christmas Eve? It was Christmas Day. A Nigerian man with a very highly technical bomb made in Yemen, Al Qaeda, seated in the perfect seat in an

A330 right over the wing next to the window, all planned, attempted to set off a bomb which was hidden in his underwear.

Had to be put together, and so what happened?

Well, word is the detonator didn't work. Thank you.

Someday it will. The fact of the matter is, it was specifically timed to spread death and burning wreckage and bodies all across a major American city as a plane went down in flames, which it would have had the detonator worked.

It didn't. People immediately jumped on the man, and it was specifically a video editor from, it was

Dutch or something like that, I forget where he was from, but I'm not sure how a video editor got to do this type of thing, but he jumped to it and got the thing out of the man's hands, and he's under arrest and all the rest of his stuff, and here we are again.

And we go, why? Why does my every... Now you can't even get out of your seat for an hour before the end of the flight.

That'll be fun. That's exciting. Why is my life having to be impacted by these things?

Believe it or not, it's relevant to verse 14. You go, how can that be relevant to verse 14? Because that phrase,

Jesus is son of God, is offensive. It's offensive to Muslims. They consider that an insult.

I've mentioned to you before, I think, maybe not from Pulpit, that there was an imam in Indonesia who said, hey, you know, we could all have peace, if you just realize that Muslims are offended when you ascribe a son to God.

So if you just stop ascribing a son to God, we could all get along. What does that mean?

If you just stop being Christians, we could all get along. Well yeah, I guess that makes sense.

But see, Islam is not just a religion. It is even more so a political system.

And so what that does, that gives a basis for building the idea that you have the idara al -Islam, the world of Islam, and then you have the world of war.

And unless you're in the world of Islam, you're in the world of war. And those who do not submit to Islam, they are opposed to Islam.

It's a black and white thing, and therefore you can have almost 287 people, I think, on this aircraft.

The vast majority of which know nothing about Islam. They don't care about Muhammad.

But yeah, there'd be some Christians on board too. Doesn't matter. They were born as a

Muslim. Everyone's born as a Muslim. Everyone's born knowing there's only one true God, Allah. And so if you do not then continue on in the

Islamic faith, what are you? You're an apostate. And what is the penalty for apostasy in Islam?

Death. And so it's perfectly fine to hit that detonator, blow the wall out of that window, right over the gas tank, and blow the plane right out of the sky.

Theology matters. There are many, many, many people this day.

We pray about it all the time. I've seen a real, because it is the holiday season,

Christmas time around the world. I've seen a huge number of articles over the past couple of weeks about the murders of Christians.

There was even a man just a few days ago, as far as I can tell, not even a

Christian, but he's the head of Middle Eastern studies at a university, stabbed to death with a six -inch knife by a

Muslim. Evidently had something to do with, just must not have been nice to Islam.

And I hear these things, and I think about the Christians who are suffering, and what is the one thing that if they would just compromise on, they wouldn't suffer?

Right there. Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

We confess that. We confess that. That may not be a term we use a lot, maybe because it's been somewhat altered, mutated, because of Roman Catholicism and confession.

Confession, profession, that's what is being spoken about in verse 14. And we are told, let us hold fast to it.

Hold on to it. Now we know in the original context what one of the major forces was.

These people are holding on to their profession. Jesus is the Son of God, but their family says, no, he was from Galilee.

Don't you see? He died in the Romans. The Messiah was supposed to be this, and the Spire was supposed to be that.

And we see now, as we look at Hebrews, now we're far enough in, we can start to look back. Oh, I see some of the things he's emphasizing here.

Wow. Chapter 1. Jesus, creator of all things. And now he's the high priest, and he's building this case all the way through.

But you see, there is this exhortation. Let us hold fast our confession.

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You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? He's promised we are going to go.

What that means is, this life, we hear about, well, the man there in Pakistan, remember just a few months ago?

There was a, they call them suicide bombers, I call them homicide bombers, because that's what they are. They're murderers.

Murderer has a place in heaven. They're following after their father was a murderer when we did it.

He was heading for a cafeteria filled with whom? Muslim girls.

And he was stopped from being able to kill three to four hundred Muslim girls at lunch in the cafeteria.

You know who stopped him? A Christian janitor. You see, in Pakistan, they don't really allow

Christians to do anything other than, you know, sweep the sewers and do janitorial work.

But it was a Christian janitor that saved the lives of all those

Muslim girls. He died. He died when the bomb went off.

But there have been a lot of people in Pakistan who have been caused to think by that.

No greater love has this man laid down his life. Got to be a lot of people, a lot of the parents, those young girls, going, a

Christian gave his life? How many opportunities? The Gospel represented right there.

But you see, that homicide bomber could not stop that Christian man from going to where his high priest is.

No walls, no prisons, no persecutions.

There is no power in this world that can stop

Jesus, the Son of God, from bringing his people the fullness of salvation.

That is why it is an encouraging text. That is why we must hold fast our confession.

Because the one who will enable us, the one who will give us that grace to do so, is

Jesus, the very Son of God. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity where we have gathered in peace and in comfort, in open possession of the

Word of God, to hear its words, to be encouraged, to be challenged, to be instructed.

We thank you for this opportunity and we pray for those, our brothers and sisters, who would love to be here with us but cannot because of the persecution that comes to them for their confession of Jesus, the

Son of God. May you draw near to them as you've drawn near to us. May you lift them up by your

Spirit. Father, as we think on these things, may you encourage our hearts and our minds to hold fast our confession.

May we see what a privilege it is to be able to say to the world,

Jesus, the Son of God. He's my High Priest.

He's my Savior. He's my Lord. We thank you that you have changed our hearts so that that is, from us, a profession of love.

We return that love to you as imperfect as it is and we thank you. In Christ's name.